‘They’re up to no good,’ said Sam.
‘Private?’
‘You plug us in to what you know, and maybe we’ll talk,’ said Sam.
They pulled into the leafy surrounds of Wat Phnom about twenty minutes later. The big roundabout that encircled the seven-hundred-year-old temple-hill was crowded with cyclos, taxis and tuc-tucs — Phnom Penh was still backwards enough for a near-new green LandCruiser to stand out, especially if the occupants were hammering along.
Sam pulled to the inside of the circle and leaned out the window, waving a US one-dollar note. The beggar crouching behind a park bench with his family came forwards and eyed the cash.
Spewing out a stream of Cambodian, Sam kept the money out of the beggar’s reach. Mac recognised good field craft — engaging the man, getting him talking but staying in control.
Finally Sam gave the man the dollar and then gave him another, and they were screeching for the road that connected Wat Phnom with the Sisowath Quay road.
‘Saw them go past only five minutes ago,’ said Sam as they hurtled past the Electricity Cambodia building towards the river. ‘Said he saw them go across Sisowath and into the docks area.’
‘Think they’re there now?’ said Phil from the rear.
‘Well, they didn’t turn north and get out of town,’ said Sam, threading through the traffic.
‘So they’ve got a boat?’ asked Mac, now caught up in the chase.
‘Wouldn’t bet against it,’ said Sam, as they paused at the Sisowath Quay main road and saw the lane into the river docks area on the other side. Edging across the traffic, the silver Mazda slipped into the courtyard in front of a depot building and Sam paused while he looked left and right.
The darkness created by the overhead trees and the generally deserted nature of the riverfront made Mac nervous. A bat jostled in a tree and screeched, and in the car they all jumped slightly.
‘Could be time to hand back that Colt, eh boys?’ said Mac as Sam took the right-hand turn and they slipped further into the darkness.
The quay apron opened up on the other side of the trees, partially floodlit. A selection of old vessels were tied up at the quayside and two large floating piers were sitting in the river, connected to the quay by concrete walkways. Sam brought the Mazda to a halt.
‘You’re not getting the Colt back,’ he said. ‘But you can make yourself useful and drive.’
Mac got out of the car and walked around it, his stomach grinding with anxiety, while Sam pushed himself across the centre console.
Getting in, Mac thought he saw movement at the end of a building at the rear of the concrete quay. Putting the car in gear, he eased forwards. ‘There’s something at the end of the building.’
‘I saw it,’ said Sam and Mac killed the lights. Behind him, the sound of Phil’s SIG being cocked broke the tense silence and Sam reached out and touched Mac’s arm.
Stopping the car, Mac switched off the engine and they watched the old warehouse on the quay, bathed in dim light.
‘You’re the driver,’ said Sam as he checked his own SIG for load and safety. ‘Stay here — be ready for anything. Now hit the trunk.’
Mac pulled the boot release and held his hand over the interior light as the two men eased silently from the car. They moved to the back of the Mazda, rummaged softly in the boot and then moved to the right of the car, towards the tree line that ran behind the warehouse. Mac could make out assault rifles in their hands, M4s by the look of them: the cut-down, souped-up M16s used by US Special Forces.
Disappearing into the shadows of the trees the two men moved towards the warehouse.
Mac reached over to the back seat, searching Sam’s backpack for his Colt, but came up empty. ‘Shit.’
Beyond the warehouse a light went out and Mac could now see the noses of a line of vehicles. One of them could have been the grille of a LandCruiser, but he couldn’t tell in the darkness. The warehouse was the commercial base for the boats that plied the river and activity in the car park on the other side of the building was hardly suspicious.
Mac searched the centre console for a weapon — even a knife would be better than nothing. The ambush at the apartment building and his temporary blindness had produced a mild shock and Mac noticed his right hand was shaking as he pulled it out of the console.
Checking the glove box, Mac found a sheaf of Hertz rental papers. A ‘Samuel Chan’ had rented the Mazda in Saigon a week ago; the papers contained lots of good stuff, such as a US address and a credit card imprint. As he put the papers back, he realised there was a California driver’s licence sitting in the glove box.
Watching the Americans move behind the warehouse, Mac could feel his adrenaline coming up. In the Royal Marines they’d said adrenaline could give you extra speed and strength, or paralyse you. It was always up to the soldier to harness the fear, not be strangled by it.
Beside his left hip, his fidgety fingers touched the boot release lever and he had an idea.
Mac pulled up the lever then eased out of the Mazda and walked to the popped boot. Looking around, he raised it, dipped his head inside to stop too much light escaping. In front of him was a Remington pump-action shotgun of the type used by American police departments, with four belts of replacement shells. That was reassuring, but there were also two grocer’s boxes, and from the opened flaps on one of them, they seemed to contain US hundred-dollar notes — perhaps a million dollars’ worth in each box. Mac grabbed a handwritten note from the top of a box, but couldn’t decipher the writing. He trousered the piece of paper.
As he stared at the cash, light filled the boot. Standing and turning, he watched a vehicle approaching down the same leafy laneway they’d just come down in the Mazda.
Blinded by the headlights, Mac lifted his arm. It wasn’t until the vehicle passed by that the passenger in the front seat locked eyes with Mac.
Those dark eyes struck him at the same time as he realised the vehicle was a late-model LandCruiser Prado. Green.
Chapter 27
The LandCruiser’s brake lights flared red as the 4x4 hissed to a stop on the concrete.
Reaching into the Mazda’s boot, Mac grabbed the Remington — from memory they were five-shooters, and he hoped Sam and Phil weren’t the conscientious types who unloaded their shotties before stashing them.
The front passenger door of the LandCruiser opened as Mac primed the Remington with a back-and-forth motion on the pump-grip and brought the shotgun to his shoulder.
Walking around the back of the car, Mac took aim and watched those creepy dark eyes withdraw on seeing the shotgun.
As the LandCruiser lurched away, Mac squeezed the Remington’s trigger. The click echoed around the quayside.
The LandCruiser’s doors opened as it slid to a stop beside one of the floating piers.
‘Fuck,’ said Mac, fumbling for the Mazda’s boot, realising he’d shut the thing.
Crawling along the car as the Israelis took position fifty metres away behind the LandCruiser, Mac ducked and pulled the boot release lever as the window above him exploded. Running in a crouch to the back of the car, he dived into the lee of the vehicle as five shots slammed into the Mazda, smashing windows and pinging steel.
Pushing the boot lid up, Mac wished his knee was up to this. He could barely straighten it.
Pulling two belts of shells from the boot as the left rear tail-lights exploded in plastic fragments, Mac knelt behind the right rear tyre, his sweaty, panicked fingers fumbling to load the Remington.
‘Shit,’ he said as he tried to get his fingernails under the brass head of a shell that didn’t want to leave its loop.
Getting two shells into the side-loading chamber, Mac stood up behind the Mazda’s boot lid, shouldering the shottie as he did so. A coughing burst of automatic fire rang out and Mac instinctively ducked while keeping eyes on the LandCruiser; the shooters were bunched behind the 4x4, but they were no longer shooting at him.